That's No Star
by Drded24
Summary: The Chief and Cortana may have stopped the Covenant and the Flood, but when they arrive on Azeroth, how will they fare against the Lich King and the undead Scourge? Rating may be changed later. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Well, as promised, my attempt at a Halo/Warcraft crossover. There's a few things I have to say about this before I start, though.**

**First, if any of you have read Freedom Guard's crossover(pretty good, check him out), then you will see some resemblances to that story in this one. There are some things that I pretty much _have _copy if I want to have the Chief as the main character. I'll try to divert from that as much as I can, but the first few parts of this are going to have some resemblances.**

**Second, I'm not going to start the story with the Chief and Cortana discovering Azeroth. I'm going to start with them still on the Ark, but I'm not going to change the Halo 3 ending or anything. That means that the first chapter of this might be a little boring. Sorry.**

**Third, I know that I should have mentioned this in my other story but it wasn't as important there- I'm not the best with Warcraft Lore, and I am open to criticisms regarding said lore. I like to think that I'm at least somewhat okay with Halo's history, but from what I can tell, that's less confusing than Warcraft's. Still, I will try to be as accurate as possible.**

**Fourth, if any of you were annoyed at how I didn't separate the different sections( like, when I switching people), I don't blame you. I thought that it was putting stuff in between them, as that's what I was doing, but I saw that the stuff didn't show up. Until I find something that will work, I'll just try to put a bunch of blank lines in between the sections. Hopefully, that will work for now and it won't automatically jam them together.**

**Fifth, the story is going to be set during WotLK. Just a little side note. If the story's successful I may move onto the Cataclysm. Mayhaps.**

**Funny thing is, I've wrote about three-tenths of the words just in this beginning section than I normally would for an entire chapter on my other story. Just a fun fact there.**

**Disclaimer:I don't own the Halo series or Warcraft. They belong to Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.**

**Now, enough of this section! **

"I'm getting you out of here." The Chief stated. Johnson shook his head weakly.

"No...You're not..."

The Chief felt the grip of Johnson's hand on his armored glove.

"Don't...don't let her go...Don't..._ever_...let her go..." The sergeant coughed painfully, still clinging to the small flicker of life inside him.

"Send me out..._with a bang_..." Johnson said. He closed his eyes, laid his head down...and let the flicker inside him die out.

The Chief was not normally a emotional person. Thirty years of fighting a genocidal collection of alien races, the emotional conditioning that the SPARTAN training hard-wired into him, and the loss of so many people that had become like brothers and sisters to him, had left him about as sentimental as a brick wall. Emotion didn't fit in with the kind of life he led, what with killing being the number one role in his since beyond he could remember. But, now, all of his friends were either dead or missing. Sam. Kelly. Fred. All the other SPARTANs. Jacob. And now Johnson. He knew and trusted Lord Hood, but the Chief viewed him more as a source of orders than a friend.

He drew his focus down to the glowing blue chip in his hand.

Well...maybe not _all _his friends...

The Chief looked at Johnson's lifeless body below him again before standing up. He walked over to the odd control...console...aww, screw it, he didn't know what it was. He didn't care, either. He held out the chip, and Cortana's form materialized on a ledge in front of him. He didn't look at her, instead choosing a point on one of the far walls and staring it down.

"Chief..." Cortana's voice came from down below him.

"I'm _so _sorry..." She frowned, hung her head, and made a gesture with her right hand. The Chief heard the sound of the replacement ring's machinery doing something or other. Cortana's form dissipated from the air, and the blue glow returned to the chip in the SPARTAN's hand hand. He slid the chip into the back of his helmet, and he felt the usual icy-needle-poking feeling that he always did when Cortana took residence inside of his brain.

_Galaxy, saved._ _For the third damn time._

He paused.

_Doesn't make me feel much better, though. _

He took one last look at Johnson's body, and then began to run back to the Arbiter.

"I am sorry, Spartan." The Arbiter said to the Chief. The SPARTAN gave him an acknowledging gesture in response. In truth, he was actually pissed at him, even though he knew there wasn't anything the Arbiter could do.

"But, come." The Chief nodded and took the assault rifle off his back and into his hands, knowing that there would be more Flood soon. And, indeed there were, swarming around a corner that the duo were about to go around. The Arbiter began to fire on one of the two infected elites with a plasma rifle while the Chief popped most of the infection forms that skittered beneath the combat forms. The Arbiter side-stepped a swipe from the infected elite, and quickly responded by clubbing the combat form upside what was left of the former elite's head, penetrating the already weakened shielding and 'killing' it. The infection inside of the elite attempted to claw its way out of its host's chest, but the Arbiter shot it while the Chief took out the other combat form.

The two continued until the outside of the control room was visible. The Chief was surprised at how quickly activating Halo had changed the ring- the sky was already red, and the Ark above them looked purple from their perspective.

"Even in death, your sergeant guides us all." The Arbiter stated, as he saw that the piece of ice shelf Johnson had fired the Spartan Laser from had fallen a bit, allowing the two a way up.

Cortana then spoke up.

"The Dawn...of course! The Frigate! We still have a chance!"

A red dot appeared on the SPARTAN's motion tracker. He turned around, expecting the Flood, but instead saw that it was a sentinel, with several more floating behind it. The Chief began to fire on them while heading up the the the slope onto the ice shelf. The Arbiter saw what the Chief was firing at, and quickly joined in, his plasma rifle draining the sentinels' shields considerably faster than the Chief's assault rifle. John noticed this, and instead turned his attention to the Flood on the ice shelf. Cortana's voice chimed in his ear.

"Head for the doorway in the cliffs, Chief. The Dawn is on the other side!" A blue waypoint appeared over an entrance into the next valley. The Chief and Arbiter proceeded along the ice shelf, mopping up the few Flood combat forms that were in their way, and managing to outrun the sentinels that they didn't immediately shoot down.

As soon as they got inside the doorway, the two realized that both the sentinels and the Flood were fighting each other. If it were any other situation, John wouldn't have alerted the two factions of his presence until they were done fighting it out with each other, but the fact that the ground beneath him would most likely explode in a matter of minutes made the situation a bit more time-pressing.

The Arbiter began to fire on the sentinels overhead while John took out the Flood who weren't attacking the sentinels at the moment. After eliminating a fair amount of each faction, a dull throb came into existence in John's head, as the Gravemind used his telekinetic abilities to communicate with the Chief.

"Resignation is my virtue. Like water, I ebb and flow." Thankfully, the Gravemind wasn't yelling at him like it was when John had gone to rescue Cortana. At the moment, it sounded...sad. Defeated, even.

"Defeat is simply the addition of time_, _to a sentence I neverdeserved..." It continued. The pain in his head increased slightly.

"...but _you_ imposed." The pain went away. Mostly, at least.

The two proceeded down the next hallway, 'popping' the carrier forms in it from a safe distance before killing all of the infection forms that spewed out of said carrier forms once they exploded.

Around the next corner was a ramp, with a large number of infection forms coming into view. A quick burst from John's assault rifle and the Arbiter's plasma rifle took care of all but two, which they ignored.

"There! Johnson's warthog!" Cortana said as the vehicle came into view. The Arbiter got into the back seat with the M41 while John climbed into the driver seat. The super soldier wondered if the Arbiter actually knew how to drive a UNSC vehicle. He smiled to himself as the picture of the Arbiter trying to work a stick-shift came into mind. That would have been interesting, to say the least.

The Chief began to drive out of the snowy area and onto the ring's unfinished portion. The metal plates beneath him, which he guessed were the places where the artificial environment would have gone once the ring was finished, were the only things that were keeping him from falling to his death-and, as one of the plates literally exploded upwards right next to him, he became sure that this escape was going to be at least somewhat...eventful.

The two were now at a large, circular platform, segmented into different sections by large columns. Flood came spewing from the center of the platform, though the Chief just avoided what the Arbiter didn't kill with the M41.

And so it went, with the Chief driving and the Arbiter gunning (and Cortana flipping out so much about the SPARTAN not driving fast enough he thought she might have been going into rampancy on the spot). The unfinished ring blew up around them, and huge pillars came crashing down onto the metal plates and took down several Flood forms at the same time. The sentinels attempted to destroy the Warthog by using the beam emitters constructed into their body, though the M41 on the back tore through their shields faster than the other weapons they had used. Eventually, as the two made a huge jump that looked like it could have been part of an action movie or video game, they spotted the forward section of Dawn sticking out from behind a rock face, with the ship's name printed on the side in large white letters.

"Eighty percent charged!" Cortana said, reminding the Chief _yet again_ that he was on a clock. The Arbiter stopped firing the turret on the back so he could reload it. The SPARTAN noticed, and attempted to drive as smooth as possible, but that was kind of _difficult. _ The two rounded the rock face and were onto the "final stretch", with the Dawn at the end of it. A nearby, oddly-shaped pillar collapsed, taking several combat forms and even a sentinel with it.

"Ninety percent-firing sequence initiated!" They were now on a downward slope, with nothing separating them from the Dawn's open hangar bay. Well...nothing except for a 230 foot gap.

"Gun it, Chief, _floor _it! Jump! Straight into the hangar!" Cortana screeched frantically into his ear. He didn't need encouraging. The pedal was being pushed down so hard by the Chief's boot that he was afraid it might break off or something of the like. The Arbiter ceased firing as the Warthog went airborne. For a short moment, there was almost complete silence, the only noise being the Warthog's wheels spinning madly.

And then they landed.

Or, perhaps the better word would be _crashed_-the Warthog landed on its passenger side, flipped onto its back, and slid along the Hangar floor. The Arbiter and Chief began to pick themselves up when a Scorpion tank began to slide towards him. He took cover behind a pile of crates in the corner. Chief, now standing, quickly jumped over the crashed Warthog to see if he was still alive. Thankfully, a second later, the Arbiter began to claw his way out of the pile of crates. The Chief gave him a silent nod, which he returned before making a dash for the bridge-unlike the Chief's MJOLNIR, his armor was not vacuum-sealed. The Chief ran over and plugged Cortana into the hangar's holotank.

"Hang on!" Cortana fired up the Dawn's rear thrusters, causing the Chief to grab onto one of the metal bars next to the holotank. The pull of gravity was increasing, though, as Cortana angled the Dawn upwards. The Chief risked a glance behind him. The only thing that he could see was the ring exploding in a brilliant array of colors. He looked forwards again just in time to see the Warthog that he had drove into the hangar on collide with his face.

"Chief!" Cortana said desperately. The blow sent the SPARTAN tumbling down the Dawn's hangar until he punched a hole in the floor only a few feet from the entrance. He looked up, seeing a large dot on his motion tracker, only to discover that the dot was actually the Scorpion that had nearly crushed the Arbiter.

_What's with our own vehicles trying to kill us today?, _he wondered before flattening out his form as much as possible to avoid the 66-ton hunk of metal careening towards him. He just barely managed to do so, as the gap in between the tank's treads was just large enough for him to avoid being hit in the face. _Again. _

He slowly began to climb his way upwards, with the Ark and replacement installation exploding beautifully behind him. By this time, he was exhausted, as he hadn't slept after he had arrived at the Ark. Granted, SPARTANs could stay awake for days at a time, but that didn't mean that they weren't affected by sleep deprivation eventually.

As he pulled himself up to look at Cortana, the Chief could have sworn that he had seen something in her smile besides her usual playful attitude. Still...he didn't pay much attention to it. He pulled himself up, took out Cortana's chip, and sat against the now empty holotank.

"If we don't make it..."

"We'll make it."

"...it's been an honor serving with you, John."

The Chief closed his eyes and set his head against the holotank as blinding white light flooded the hangar.

"Chief? Can you hear me?"

The Chief cracked his eyes open, and immediately noticed the fact that he was floating. He checked the pressure meter on his HUD, which confirmed the fact that he was in a zero-gravity environment.

"I thought I'd lost you too." Cortana sounded quite relieved. The Chief spotted his assault rifle floating nearby, and quickly snatched it and put it on his back.

"What happened?" The Chief asked.

"I'm... not sure. When Halo fired, it shook itself to pieces. Did a number on the Ark. The portal couldn't sustain itself. We made it through just as it collapsed."

The Chief looked out towards the end of the ship. It had been sheared neatly in half.

"Well...some of us made it..."

The Chief arrived in a large room, with a row of cryotubes on the wall.

"But, you did it. Truth, and the Covenant, the Flood..."

He slid the blue chip into the room's holotank, and Cortana's avatar appeared before him.

"It's finished."

The Chief smiled slightly behind his helmet before agreeing with her.

"It's finished."

The SPARTAN then put his assault rifle on one of the racks on the wall.

"I'll drop a beacon, but...it'll be a while before anyone finds us...years, even."

The Chief climbed into a cryotube, and the door began to close.

"...I'll miss you..." Cortana's holographic form looked down at her feet.

"Wake me. When you need me."

She looked up at the Chief, and smiled the same mischievous little smile that she did when they were still at the Ark.

She may not have seen it, but he returned it.

**Alright, I guess I don't blame any of you if you don't even read this part, considering the fact that most of you probably know what happens, but I wanted to do it anyway. I don't know why, I just felt like doing it. And it's too late for me to change it, anyway. But, if you did read it and didn't like it, I believe that the rest of the story will be better, seeing as how I'm going to be able to come up with what the two do and not have to go by the book, so to speak. **

**Well, that about wraps it up. Hasta la vista, mah peeps. **


	2. Chapter 2

**There. Another chapter, with this one hopefully better than the first seeing as how I get to decide who does what. I CAN DECIDE THE FATE OF ALL THESE MORTALS, JUST IN A FEW PETTY KEYSTOKES. (Please excuse my blissful fantasizing. I just like having pawns.) Thank you, Moon, for reviewing. I'm not positive about the gun thingy, but I think it's actually the M41 LAAG. Oh, and LAAG means light anti aircraft gun. Yes, I am a Halo nerd. :D Another thing, I'm gonna have to make Azeroth quite a bit bigger than it actually is in-game, for obvious reasons.**

**Oh, and if anyone here knows how I could separate my "sections"( I voiced this problem in the first chapter but now it's really starting to make me angryface) then I would really appreciate it if you could tell me how to do so. Anyway, enjoy.**

Two months. It had been two months since the Chief had climbed into the cryo tube and had left Cortana alone. Specifically, it had been sixty-two days, three hours, thirty-one minutes and nine seconds. What had he expected her to do, anyway? Surely the Chief had known that an A.I being bored for long periods of time was not a good idea. It almost seemed selfish to her, the fact that he got to sleep in content silence for so long while she tortured herself running over all of the data that they had gathered over the years. To a normal person, it would most likely seem insurmountable-a war against aliens, hundreds of thousands year old structures, a floating robot that enjoyed humming in its spare time...all quite interesting. Even to Cortana, it was a _ huge_ amount of information. But, of course, UNSC A.I were designed to take in huge amounts of data.

She was monitoring all of the ship's scanners at the time when she had first spotted it. At first, she was certain it was another piece of rock or something of the like. That was, until more of it was revealed on the scanners.

It was a planet. Well, that or a really big, spherical asteroid. Either way, however, it was quite small.

After busying herself for a few more seconds by wondering what it could be, Cortana was able to get a more detailed scan of the planet's surface.

Three main landmasses we visible-one was to the West, another to the East, and the last between them both and North a bit, with seas separating the continents. And, it had some form of foliage on it. Foliage meant life. Life meant...life. Perhaps some of the Chief's luck would come into play and

the atmosphere might even be safe for him to breathe, assuming she was going to wake him up. Cortana was still too far out to get any more information, and seeing as how the majority of the sensory equipment was on the forward half of the Dawn that the Arbiter was on, she probably wouldn't get much more than that anyway.

For the UNSC, this would've been a real treasure-a planet, already teeming with plant life that had never been previously discovered. Even if the atmosphere wasn't breathable, terraforming could most likely change that anyway. Of course, the whole UNSC wasn't here, and the Dawn alone was not capable of changing a planet's atmosphere to that extent. They would just have to get _lucky. _So far however, the Chief had proven that luck wasn't an issue for him.

Given the situation, she decided to wake the SPARTAN. His suit only had ninety minutes of air, but the rooms in the ship(well, half-ship) that weren't near the point where the Dawn was cut did have oxygen in them.

_A large mass in front of him. Writhing. Seething. Disgusting. It lashed out. He didn't know with what. Didn't matter. Had to move. Had to evade. Couldn't. Impossible to move. Didn't know why. _

_Deep voice. Disembodied. Loud. Equally disgusting as the mass in front of him._

"_...conquered fleets of THOUSANDS!..."_

"_Consumed a galaxy of FLESH, and MIND, and BONE!"_

"_The sins of your fathers shall NOT be FORGIVEN!"_

The Master Chief awoke, frost on the inside of the cryotube obscuring his vision of anything outside. The cryotube's door lifted a tiny fraction, before slowly raising up to the point where he could see the section of the ship in front of him, as well as his blue artificial friend's avatar smiling at him from her standing position on a holotank.

"Enjoy your beauty sleep?" Cortana's holographic lips moved, but her voice came over the Chief's Com-obviously, using the ship's speakers wouldn't work due to the lack of air.

The Chief replied with a simple grunt. He may not have shown it, but he was glad she had made one of her usual remarks-he took it as a sign that she hadn't gone rampant.

"Situation?" He asked as he climbed out of the cryotube and into the zero-gee environment.

Cortana's avatar disappeared for a moment, before being replaced by a blue representation of a planet that the Chief didn't recognize. He tilted his head at it.

"Guess what we stumbled across?" Cortana asked.

"A pink unicorn." He said, hoping to lighten the situation more. He had no doubt that being alone must have been hell for Cortana.

Her avatar appeared beside the planet and frowned. " The answer is _right in front of you._"

The Chief floated over to the holotank to get a better look at the planet. Although the only color the holotank displayed was blue, he could easily see that the planet had plant life. That was good. _Very _good.

"Atmosphere?" He inquired.

"I can't tell yet, with the majority of the sensory equipment gone. Still, good news, right? Foliage means something."

The Chief moved away from the holotank and floated over to the rack that he had put his assault rifle on before taking it off and then onto his back. He floated down to a doorway which Cortana opened for him. She closed it once the Chief was through, and then filled the room with oxygen again. The MJOLNIR's internal pressure adjusted to the change.

"...And you?" The Chief asked to an inactive holotank. Cortana's form appeared with one hand on her hip.

"I'm fine, Chief." The SPARTAN continued to float around. He wasn't entirely convinced she was fine, but the fact that she hadn't tried to kill him was certainly worth something.

"So, I assume that you want to go down to the surface?" The AI asked.

"Mhmm." Cortana's form appeared on the holotanks leading to the armory. She frowned.

"You know, the chances of there being anything hostile down there are astronomical." She said, knowing that it wouldn't make him change his mind.

"Doesn't hurt to be careful." He floated into the armory, which was noticeably lacking in weapons-a good portion had been issued to the marines, obviously. It still had a good amount of guns, though. He went over to one of the weapons racks and pulled off a battle rifle, followed by him attaching a combat knife to his right breastplate. He then grabbed a pair of frag grenades as well as ammunition for his weapons.

"Are there any vehicles still left?" The Chief asked Cortana.

"Yeah, a few. Obviously, between what fell out of the Dawn and what was used on the Ark, not very much, but there _is _something interesting in one of the aircraft bays...according to the UNSC's records, it's a gunship called a Vulture. Apparently, most of them were destroyed during the Harvest campaign. It's pretty beat up, though. I doubt you could fly it."

The Chief nodded towards a holotank Cortana was on. The 'Vulture' warranted further investigation once he had time to spare.

"Besides that, there are three HEV's left, a pelican, two troop Warthogs, two Warthogs with chain guns, four mongoose, and even a banshee. Don't ask me how that thing got in here. I have no clue."

The Chief continued floating towards the Hangars, glad for the "I thought you said _not very much."_

"I did. Knowing your driving and piloting skills, all that stuff probably won't last more than a few minutes." Cortana said. Her form appeared appeared on another holotank, smiling jokingly. The Chief was glad for her humor. He responded with some of his own.

"As I recall, _you _were the one piloting this ship when it was cut in half."

She narrowed her blue eyes at him. He smiled behind his visor.

"So, how are you going to get down?" She asked him.

"Pelican." The Chief had contemplated using the Banshee instead. As effective as it was, however, he still preferred UNSC equipment over alien technology, and he wasn't sure if a banshee could survive entry to an atmosphere.

"Aren't you going to bring me?" Cortana asked as the Chief passed by yet another holotank.

"No. I want you to stay on the Dawn in case there's something dangerous down there. And to bring her down once I find a spot to land."

"You know I'm not happy about that." Cortana said,.

"Just don't want to risk you getting hurt."

Cortana frowned, but she knew that it was no use trying to convince him otherwise. He was far too stubborn.

"Alright, fine. I also appreciate your concern." She said.

The door in front of the Chief opened, and he floated into the room where the vehicles were. They were pretty much all piled up against one corner of the room, and not all the vehicles were visible. The Chief spotted what he assumed was the Vulture-it was by far the largest vehicle in the room.

"The Vulture is, apparently, a flying tank. There was an account on Harvest of a Vulture taking on a Covenant Scarab without any support, and almost destroying it as well. Its armament includes Sylver Missile Launchers-air to surface missiles that can destroy a Wraith with just two hits. It also has dual

GUA-twenty three's-thirty millimeter linkless feed autocannons, as well as Argent-Five surface to air missiles-or in this case, air to air missiles. It's armor allows it to take even more damage than a modern Pelican can."

"If they're so powerful, why didn't we use them more often?" The Chief asked.

"For one, the amount of training that a pilot has to go through is quite large. If a pilot can't control it perfectly, then they're probably going to crash into one thing or another. And, late in the war, the UNSC didn't have enough time to train many good pilots for them. They're also terribly expensive, and the UNSC thought that it would be more cost-efficient to just put guns and missiles on Pelicans than to make more of these things."

The Chief looked at the Vulture again. It clearly was not in a flyable state, with armor missing in various places and scorch marks blackening most of the paint. Part of the tail was even chipped off. It probably wouldn't matter much anyway; as Cortana said, they weren't likely to encounter any hostiles.

The Chief then identified the Pelican, upside-down and on top of the pile of vehicles. Thankful that there was no gravity, he floated over to it and righted it in a matter of seconds.

"The planet that you're going down to has three visible continents. I recommend that you go down towards the one to the North-it's probably the least hospitable, but I'd guess that there would be plenty of flat areas on it. We'll need a large area to land the Dawn on." Cortana said as the Chief climbed into the Pelican's cockpit. The pilot's seat wasn't exactly contoured to fit a fully-armored SPARTAN, but he managed to squeeze into it.

"I assume you want to pilot it yourself?" Cortana asked. The Chief responded with an affirmative grunt over the Com.

"Alright, everything's good. Opening bay doors." Said doors opened after a few seconds. The Chief carefully maneuvered the Pelican out of the Hangar, doing his best not to hit the floor, ceiling, or walls. Just as he was exiting the Dawn, however, he accidentally scraped the Pelican against the floor. It wouldn't affect it to any noticeable degree, but Cortana didn't miss the opportunity to comment.

"Smooth."

"I'm no airline pilot." The Chief said as he turned the Pelican towards the planet. He immediately noticed how small it was, compared to a planet such as Earth or Reach.

Reach. The thought immediately brought back emotions that he found difficult to suppress. He _always _did. Reach was the closest thing to a home the SPARTANS had, and to see it reduced to a sphere of smoldering glass and rock had made a hole in him.

He shook his head. He couldn't let his emotions take over him.

"It'll take a few minutes to get to the surface, so I guess you can just chill for a bit." Cortana said.

"It doesn't exactly look healthy." Trizz Sprizzlenip said to the human in front of her. Hayard looked down at the mug in front of him. Indeed, the black liquid looked less like a beverage and more like some kind of poison.

He had been dared to drink something that Brukut-his dwarven companion-called a "Black Mountain". According to him, it was so strong that even _he_ didn't want to risk trying one. Hayard wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but almost the entire bar- nine or ten people, including the bartender- had bet on it already. Most of those bets were not in his favor.

Still, money was money, no matter who you got it from. Not that he was greedy or anything, but Hayard had been looking forward to a fancy set of armor for the past month. At the price, he knew that he would never, even if he lived for a thousand years, get enough money to buy it. Still, he kept trying to convince himself otherwise. He also had..._other _motives for attempting the challenge.

Said motives were certainly _not _ the extremely attractive draenei woman who was sitting a few stools away from him.

"Nah, screw it. Might as well get this over with." He said.

"Remember, ye only have to down one gulp, lad." Brukut said to him. He was one of the few people betting for him, one of the others being the draenei. He took her doing so as a good start to...something. He hoped she wouldn't regret her decision in a few seconds.

"Goodbye, cruel world." Hayard said before taking one last look at the jet-black liquid...and drinking it.

He regret it immediately. Hayard had downed strong drinks before, but this wasn't a drink. This was a million punches to the mouth in liquid form. He struggled to stay on the stool, the sounds of the bar both fading and amplifying tenfold. His vision began to fade black...before he remembered that he was being watched by the draenei woman. He clung to that thought, and slowly he came to his senses.

Noise. Lots of it. He soon recognized it as cheering. He managed a smile as he sat up on the stool. Brukut immediately turned Hayard's head toward him, checking to make sure he was alright. He was perhaps the only one being remotely serious, but the dwarf still had a huge grin on his face. The cheering slowly died down into laughter as money changed hands. Before he knew it, he saw multiple small bags being dropped in front of him. He then noticed movement out of his peripheral vision, turned to his right, and saw the draenei sitting on the bar cross-legged with a small smile on her face.

And then he realized that, in all his fantasizing and spying, Hayard hadn't actually come up with anything to _say._ He quickly came up with a compliment.

"Pretty necklace." He said, regarding the large crystal hanging from the woman's neck.

"Thanks. Got it from a friend." She said, smiling again. Hayard paused for a full second. What were you supposed to _say? _It was that weird period between the introductions and snogging that it seemed he was never prepared for.

"Do you want to, ummm...go outside for a bit?" She asked, relieving him. Maybe he would be able to skip straight to snogging? Hayard quickly pushed the thought aside. Some people might consider that objectifying a person.

"Umm, yeah, sure. Sounds good." The draenei hopped off of the bar, her hooves making a soft _thunk _as she did so. Hayard picked up his money, and the two made for the door, hoping that the rest of the bar wouldn't notice them. To his relief, nobody did, or at least they didn't comment on it.

"So." He said.

"So." She repeated.

Unbeknownst to each other, they were both thinking the same thing. That thing was...

_Crap._

Hayard, thankful for his seemingly small but quick brain, quickly came up with another thing to say.

"Nice night." He wasn't really lying; it was a nice night, as normally Valiance Keep was under attack from one thing or another, but apparently the undead weren't in the mood for bothering the living at the time. The wall guards might actually catch a night where they _wouldn't _have to kill anything.

The draenei looked at him for a moment and then turned her eyes to the dirt below them and frowned. Hayard immediately took this as a bad sign, a sign that he had done something wrong. He cursed himself at his failure to read body language. Then, thankfully, she looked back up at him and her smile returned.

"I guess I'm not the only one who seems to always be grappling for words at this point." She said.

"Yeah...I rarely...get this far anyway." Hayard felt both relieved and nervous at the same time.

"Say, umm...I don't really want to rush anything, but... how does dinner sound?" The draenei asked, her cheeks turned a deeper shade of blue. Hayard thought he saw her tail curl up a bit too, but she hid it behind her leg.

"...Nice. When?"

"How about tomorrow, right around this time? Here?" She asked as nervously as him.

"That sounds fine." Hayard said. They both smiled at each other before looking down at their feet. Well, for Hayard, it was feet. For the draenei, it was hooves.

"I guess I didn't catch your name yet..." She said.

"Hayard, Hayard Fischer. And you?"

"Belluna." Her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of blue. Hayard had no doubt his own face was as red as...something very red.

"Well, umm...I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Hayard." She said, and began to walk away. He began to walk slowly to the door of the inn when he heard this "Belluna" say something.

"Hey...What's that?" She asked. Hayard turned around as she raised her finger up to something in the sky and turned to make sure she had his attention. He stole another look at her face before looking up at what she was pointing at. Several other people in the Keep seemed to notice it, too. He smiled.

"Looks like a shooting star."

"What's a shooting star?" She asked, confused.

"A big chunk of rock, burning up while from entering the planet's atmosphere. This particular one seems to be moving kind of slow...and it seems rather bright." Hayard thanked himself for remembering that much from his childhood, when he had seen multiple of the "stars" shooting across the sky. He could barely see this one. It looked like it might be somewhere above Dragonblight.

"Heh. Make a wish." He said with a smile. She looked at him with another confused-but-still-cute expression.

"Old tradition for us to make wishes when we see them." The draenei returned his smile and nodded.

He watched Belluna close her eyes for moment before walking away.

Hayard looked back up at the shooting star. It was still there. That was odd...most only lasted for a few seconds, if that. He kept his gaze until the object disappeared behind the wall of the Keep.

He smiled again before heading back into the inn, believing the "star" just seemed bright because he was a kid when he last saw one.

Of course...nobody there knew that it was neither star nor rock, but something much, much more important.

**Ominous! **

**I was hoping to get the Chief's landing in this chapter, but I guess I just went overboard a bit on what is in there. I'm actually rather proud of this chapter. Nothing big, but I just think I wrote it out nicely.**

**Anyway, thanks all of you for reading. I may or may not go back to Some Shade of Blue next. Not sure. Just be happy with this for a while. It's almost 11 PM right now, the only reason for my awakeness being that I just wanted to get this done for tomorrow.**

**Bye! **


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi again. Special thanks to all of you for the story alerts and whatnot, and of course to the two people that have reviewed so far. You are all the assum possumz. **

**Moon-Yeah, I loved the Vultures too. I would pretty much always spam them as soon as possible if I played UNSC. :D Oh, and by North, I mean in Northrend, the really cold place where the Scourge and Lich King are. The Horde are there too, so maybe it's just me being stupid.**

**Sharno-thing Empire- Yeah, I hope I can fill dem shoes. Not that I'm gonna worry much...your "supah mak gun" is no match for the Chief's FALCAWN...PAWNCH! **

**I regret doing that. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to get rid of it. **

**One more thing...since just jamming empty lines in between "sections" hasn't been working, I'll just tell you when I'm switching. Expect it look like something like...**

{[Place or Characters who I'm switching to]}

**Anyway, onto next chapter.**

**{[Chief And Cortana]}**

People.

On this planet.

Living people.

Civilized people.

The Chief stopped. Below him and a fair distance away was an odd-looking village that reminded him of a picture of a castle that Deja, the SPARTANs' training A.I, had showed them once. People were walking around casually. He couldn't make out any features, but he didn't really need to. Those _were _people. Everything that he had been taught as a kid seemed to flood into his brain, like it did the first time he saw the Covenant. Deja, the SPARTAN candidates' training A.I, had told them that the chances of there being intelligent life anywhere in the galaxy (excluding humanity, of course) was so extremely unlikely that they had a better chance of trying to kill Chief Mendez. And of course, John himself _had _said that nothing could kill Mendez.

He returned to his normal state. This certainly was not the first time he had encountered aliens before. Of course, that begged the question...what would an encounter with them lead up to, anyway?

The Chief quickly pushed the thought aside. There was no way that the people of this world knew English, or any other recognized language. Still...the UNSC did have technology for interpreting different parts of a language to form a somewhat-accurate translation system. So, perhaps, if they had that technology...

Again, the SPARTAN quashed the thought. He knew that he couldn't get ahead of him self. Right now, he had to prioritize.

_Find an LZ for the Dawn. Then investigate further. _

The Chief remembered that Cortana didn't even know about this yet. He opened a Comlink to the Dawn and opened his mouth, but Cortana was too quick even for the Chief.

"What is it? Find an LZ?" She asked eagerly.

"No, not yet."

"What is it then? You wouldn't open a link for nothing."

"It would probably be better to show you." The Chief remembered to make sure the Pelican was automatically hovering before he grabbed a datapad from the cockpit's co-pilot seat. He uploaded a few pictures of the village-like thing from his helmet onto the datapad before uploading those to the Dawn. There was about a three second long pause before the Chief spoke.

"You getting this?"

"Yeah...ummm...any suggestions?" She asked.

"Land the Dawn, secure the area, then investigate further."

"Phew...yeah, that sounds good. Did they see you yet?"

"I don't think so."

"Think you can take a few more pictures?"

"Sure." The Chief used his helmet to take more pictures before sending them up to Cortana via the datapad.

"Alright, that should be good for now. Focus on finding an LZ now." The Chief grunted over the Com, closed the link and continued flying around until, about ten minutes later, he came upon what looked like a suitable area. It was out of sight of the village, behind a mountain near the ocean. He knew that it would be an okay spot for the Dawn to land, but he had another thing on his mind. The Chief opened another Com channel to Cortana.

"Cortana, I think there might be a problem."

"Hmm? Go ahead, I'm listening."

"I found you an LZ, but it's close enough to the village that I'm afraid they might see you coming down." The Chief could practically hear Cortana frown.

"I was afraid of that. Originally, I didn't really think about it, seeing as how we didn't know this place was inhabited." She sighed over the Com.

"Which leaves only one logical option." She said. Now, he was sure the A.I was smiling.

"Go back to the Dawn?" The Chief asked hopefully.

"Oh, ha-ha. You know what I mean. You're going to have to play negotiator, Chief." She said smugly.

"How do I 'negotiate' if the people I'm negotiating with don't even speak English?" The Chief asked, becoming mildly frustrated.

"Well, first of all, you don't have to jump straight to talking. You could, you know...spy on them."

"That sounds much better to me." The Chief said as he began to bring the Pelican down to the LZ.

"Oh, and don't forget to take lots of pictures!"

**{[Wyrmrest Temple}]**

"Indeed...I believe we have all seen those meteors fall before, but that looked nothing like one." Alexstrasza the Life-Binder said to the other members of the Accord on top of the Temple. She, along with the others on the top of the Temple, had seen a strange light falling from the sky a few minutes prior.

"Well, then why are we standing up here? Why not go and investigate?" The voice came from Nalice, the Black flight's ambassador to the Accord.

"Alright, if you'd like to do so, Krasus can look after the Temple while we're away. Would anyone else like to join us?" Alexstrasza asked.

"I'd like to."Chronormu, the Bronze flight's ambassador, said. Alexstrasza waited a few more seconds without anyone else speaking up. She nodded.

"Alright. Let's be off."

**{[Chief]}**

He was amazed. Again. The Chief had crept up to the top of a hill near the LZ to watch the village-castle thing, and he found that not only were these people indeed civilized, but they were of different _races._ The first one he saw looked like a human with severe dwarfism or something of the like. He or she-he couldn't tell its gender at this range, but he guessed it was a male- was carrying some kind of walking stick, and was wearing _robes._ The Chief had absolutely no idea why a person would be wearing robes, unless they were in a cult or something. The dwarf-thing was on top of what looked like ramparts of the castle. The Chief had already gathered multiple pictures of him, as well as the whole castle in general.

Castles? Robes? Weird people? It certainly wasn't the strangest thing that he'd seen in his life, but it was one of the few that he really had no possible explanation for. Satisfied, he silently stood up and began his ten-minute hike back to the Pelican.

**{[Dragons]}**

"What..the..?" Nalice said as she tapped on the strange metal object in front of her.

"I've never seen something like this before.." Chronormu said, dumbfounded. All three were in their disguised forms, offering them a better view of the object. Well, for the other two, anyway. Chronormu's 'disguise' was a bit short.

The last one, Alexstrasza, knew about as much about the object in front of them as the other two with her.

Nalice looked into the glass at what she assumed to be the front of the object, and noticed an array of odd...devices.

"I think it might be some kind of machine." She said as Alexstrasza came over to look into the glass.

"Should we break in?" Chronormu suggested.

"No, not yet..." Alexstrasza said as she circled around the back. She noticed something she hadn't before-another strange object that stood out against the dark metal it was on. She moved up to it, and noticed that it had markings on it. The other two women saw her and came over.

Nalice squinted to see the writing on it.

"...'open'." She read from one of the squares on the piece of metal. She ran her hand over it, and the three jumped back when they heard a strange noise. Then, the back of the object seemed to just come down, as if the entire object wasn't just one piece of metal. They all stood there for a second, waiting to see if anything happened.

Confident that the object didn't pose any threat, Alexstrasza took a step towards it.

_Click._

The three turned around quickly. Before them was a large figure, dressed from head to toe in green and black armor.

And it was pointing a gun at Alexstrasza.

**Yaaaay, update. Not much to say except for the fact that I'm sorry for not updating in a long time. It just takes me a while to make everything seem good to me.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the huge wait guys. My excuse is that the laptop I was using broke, so then I had to wait like a week for the new one, only to find out a while ago that the first laptop I was using is okay now and the stuff on it is there. But I don't feel like going back to the old laptop since this one runs a lot faster, and because I'm used to this one now. Oh yeah, and school.**

**I probably should have more excuses, huh?**

**:(**

**Anyway, since it took me a long time to post this one I'll try to make it longer. Consider it an apology for all this stuff. Oh yeah, and one more thing- I'm not gonna do **

****

He had seen them way before he had come up to them. There were three, all female. All gathered around the Pelican. His pelican.

The first was short, like the robed person that the Chief had seen earlier. She too was wearing robes, though they were bronze and white, unlike the first person's attire. The second actually appeared to be human. She was wearing robes as well, mainly colored with black and violet. The Chief had thought about her being human- it didn't make much sense. Cortana had told him that this planet wasn't a UNSC colony, which left only one likely option-an _Innie _colony. But that still posed a question-why were they wearing robes? He briefly recalled a time with Deja, the SPARTANs' training AI, in which she had talked about the medieval and renaissance periods. She said that people back then wore robes. He couldn't remember why, though. He was kind of thankful that Cortana wasn't there to give him a history lesson on this sort of thing, but at the same time he wished she was in his armor. Granted, the sometimes incessant talking could certainly be annoying at times, but that was offset by the multiple times she had saved his life.

The last one, though...it was _her _that really confused him. Her skin was almost shade of red, like she had spent her entire life trying to get a really, really dark tan. Her outfit wasn't exactly a robe, either-if he had to guess, he would have called it more of a metal bra and pants than armor. He never really knew much about the whole 'skimpy outfit' thing, but her outfit didn't exactly scream "modest" to him. The real thing that stood out, though, was her head.

She had horns.

He slowly crept forward, making as little noise as possible. He was never the stealthiest Spartan, but they all were trained in avoiding detection. The three women seemed pretty engrossed in the Pelican anyway, almost as if they had never seen anything like it before. He crept within seventy feet of them and the Pelican, sneaking behind rocks to avoid detection. He kept one eye on them and the other on his motion tracker-he didn't know if there were more people than he could see. If there were, and these people were Innies, then he had no clue what they had in store for him. Not that that would be any different if they weren't Innies.

Once he was about thirty feet of them, the Chief raised his rifle and pointed it at the red-skinned one. He wasn't going to shoot her-not yet, at least. He flipped the rifle's safety to fully automatic, not bothering to conceal the noise. He wanted their attention anyway.

All three turned around and saw him. He had to give them credit-either they had never heard of Spartans, or they weren't easily intimidated. Instead of backing up instantly like most people did the second they saw a SPARTAN, the three women just seemed examine him. It made him uncomfortable.

He checked his motion sensor again, and was rewarded with nothing except for the signatures of the the three people in front of him. He looked back up at them.

"You have five seconds to step aside." He said, his voice cold. He almost hoped that these people were Innies, by some chance- at least then they might understand English.

Instantly, the two that he wasn't pointing the gun at began to back up. The red one, though, stood her ground, and began to speak, to his surprise, English.

"I am Alexastrasza, queen of-" she began. The Chief cut her off.

"Great. I'll pretend that means something to me for three more seconds before I pull the trigger." He said. His voice didn't change. To his relief, she didn't say anything more and backed away from him and the Pelican. He kept his rifle trained straight at her forehead.

"Speak." The Chief said. He then turned on his helmet camera for Cortana. The A.I. began to speak, but stopped as soon as she realized that someone else was talking.

****

Alexastrasza was surprised, which was certainly something that didn't to her often. This being had spoken to her as if he had no clue who she was, and even if he did, he certainly didn't care what her position was. Nobody, not even her enemies, did that. At least they all knew who she was.

Not this one, though. The only reason she had moved away was out of curiosity- she wanted to see who this person was, and, though she didn't know much about guns, she did know what he meant when he said "pull the trigger". She couldn't really hold a conversation if this being was shooting at her, although she doubted it would do much to her if he did.

"I am Alexastrasza, queen of the red dragonflight. There is no need for hostilities, I assure we don't wish to harm you." She looked at the strange metal contraption that had drawn her there in the first place.

"Is this the object that fell from the sky last night?" She asked, turning back to the being before her.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Before you get any of your answers, I want some of mine." He said. Nalice then began to speak.

"What makes you think that you can order us around like so?" She said. The being pointed its rifle towards her instead.

"Well, how about we start with the fact that I'm the one with the gun?" His voice remained cold.

"Do you think that will help you?" Nalice asked.

"If you think that you can stop bullets, I'll be glad to prove you wrong." The being said. His voice still didn't break.

"...do you even understand the whole 'dragonflight' thing? Do you know who we are?" Nalice asked. She was nearing her last nerve. She never had that many anyway.

"I have no clue what you're going on about, nor do I care. Either you're a bunch of crazy civilians on an unregistered colony or you're Insurrectionists. If you are civilians then you damn well better tell me what you're doing here. If you're Innies then I'm going to shoot first, then ask questions."

Nalice didn't even know what he was talking about, but she did understand that he had just threatened her. And with that, she snapped.

****

The Chief didn't even have any time to think about what happened; the second he finished speaking, the one in the black robes got a really pissed off look on her face. The next second...he couldn't even believe what the hell she had transformed into.

She was a dragon.

Black scales. Wings. Tail. Things he remembered Deja saying, old stories about knights slaying dragons and saving princesses, flashed into his mind. He shoved them down. He had to focus.

If this _thing _wanted to tangle, then he had every intention of giving her- or perhaps _it_- a severe ass kicking.

He focused solely on the thing in front of him, disregarding the other two women for the time.

"Ummm... Cortana?" The Chief said over the radio quickly.

"I...Chief, I have no clue what the hell she just did but I-"

The sound of the A.I.'s voice was drowned out as the dragon leaned back, opened her mouth, and let out a roar. She then turned her attention back to the Chief, and what he could only a describe as a smile crept onto her face.

"Nalice!" The other two women yelled. They seemed to at least stop her from attacking the Chief.

"Still want to shoot me _now?_" The dragon asked. The Chief didn't know how she could even speak, but her voice did drop a bit and became more gravely. Nevertheless, the Chief didn't miss a beat. He also, to his own surprise, managed to keep his voice as calm as it was before.

"I don't know how you did that, but if you attack me, then yeah. I will shoot you."

"Nalice, please, calm down..." The red-skinned began to speak again, and 'Nalice', thankfully, diverted her attention from the Chief and to the woman pleading with her. The Chief used the break to contact his companion.

"Cortana? You getting this?"

"Yeah, I am. Listen, I have no clue what she just did, but try to keep it together until I can land the Dawn, okay? I can't send out anything to help you until this thing is on the ground."

"Alright. Got it. Don't bring it down just yet, though. It might freak them out even more." The Chief turned his attention back to the three people in front of him. Well, the two people and the one psycho dragon lady.

"He threatened all of us. I don't understand why you don't want to put him in his place." Nalice said.

"That is true, but he said he didn't know who we are-" The woman in the white and bronze robes began, but was interrupted.

"Yes, and he also said that he didn't _care!_"

"He said that all he wanted was answers, as do we. You are going to oblige him." The red one said sternly. Thankfully, it seemed like that shut up the dragon. She then faced towards the Chief.

"I apologize for Nalice's actions, she can be quite rash at times. You have questions? Please, ask them."

There was a brief pause before the Chief spoke towards the dragon.

"What the hell did you just do?" The dragon stared at him for a second-probably thinking of ways to kill him-before answering.

"What does it look like? I transformed into-"

"Yeah, I got that part. I meant how."

"...magic?" She said, her voice more appropriate for talking to a child.

The Chief was about tell her not to lie, but he paused for a second before he spoke.

"Are you being serious?"

"How else would I?" Her voice didn't change.

Cortana opened up a radio connection and spoke to him.

"I stress-analyzed her voice. If I'm right-and I have no reason to suggest otherwise- she isn't lying."

The Chief asked another question as he gestured towards the two normal women.

"You two. Are you...dragons...as well?"

"Yes." They both said in unison.

"Same thing, Chief. From what I can tell they aren't lying." Cortana said. The Chief looked at the three of them, and then let his rifle drop a bit.

"Alright, I have more questions, but I guess that they can wait. Give me a second, okay?" He said to the three. The two regular women nodded, but the other one was still glaring at him, and continued doing so as the Chief lowered his rifle and went to the back of the Pelican. He dropped the ramp to the troop bay.

"Stay there." He said as he entered the troop bay and closed the ramp behind him.

****

All three women watched as the soldier disappeared inside the metal device.

"What do you think we should do?" Chronormu asked Alexastrasza.

"If he is willing, then I believe we should try to bring him back to our Wyrmrest Temple. Maybe there he'll feel more comfortable."

"He isn't _comfortable _talking to three of us. How do you think being in the presence of hundreds of the same people will help?" Nalice asked.

"Perhaps it's not us that's making him act like he is. It could be the Lich King." Chronormu suggested.

"That's a possibility." Alexastrasza said.

The bottom of the machine that the being had used opened up again, and he stepped out. The three ended their conversation and looked at him.

"You two are dragons too, right? You mind doing...whatever it is that she did to transform into one?" He asked. His voiced sounded a little bit less cold, but it still wasn't exactly comforting.

Chronormu and Alexastrasza did as he asked, both transforming into their true forms. Though she wouldn't say it, Alexastrasza was impressed-either he wasn't intimidated by her large size or he he hid it well.

"Thanks. Alright, now we all need to move pretty far away, I'd say to about..." -He gestured towards a hill in the distance-"there."

Alexastrasza opened her mouth but was cut off.

"I know you're going to ask why, but believe me, this is for your own safety." He said before going back into the metal device and closed it again. The three dragons looked at each other for a second, and then looked through the glass of the device and saw the being on the other side. He pointed towards the same hill, like he did earlier. Then, to their surprise, flames seemed to erupt from the back of the device and it actually began to fly towards the hill. The three dragons followed it.

****

The Chief had talked to Cortana while in the Pelican, and had told her to get ready to bring the Dawn down, considering the fact that stealth was now out of question. He opened up a new connection to her.

"By the way, will you be able to actually land it or will you have to crash it?" He asked the A.I. As he piloted the Pelican towards, he kept one eye on the dragons behind him.

"Well, I can't say for certain. The way it looks though, with this much equipment gone, I don't think that this going to be a smooth landing. Hopefully it won't be rough enough to break anything important."

When the four reached the point that the Spartan had designated, they all landed. The three dragons following him gave the Pelican a confused look-or at least, that's what the Chief took it as.

He stepped out of the back again, with all eyes on him.

"What is that...machine?" The red one asked. The Chief answered.

"Pelican." He then opened up a com link to Cortana.

"Alright. You're good."

"Got it. Should see the Dawn in a few seconds." Cortana said. He killed the comlink.

"You all might want to get behind something."

"Why?" Nalice asked. The Chief pointed to the sky.

A soft sound filled their ears, which then turned into a dull roar. The Chief, obviously, knew what it was, but he smiled behind his helmet at the other three, trying to figure out what the noise was.

The Chief wasn't an expert-or a Captain- but when he saw how fast the Dawn was coming in, he doubted that Cortana was going to be able to land without causing some form of damage. To his surprise and relief, however, she managed to slow the Dawn down considerably. It wasn't enough to stop the the half-ship from crashing into the ground, but it didn't look that bad. He turned towards the three people near him.

"_That's _why."

****

**Well, there you go. A nice, kind of long chapter. Well, it's long for me. Again, sorry for the, like, what, four month wait? D:**

**Anyway, that's it for now. Bye!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay, I know that you guys probably all think I'm just being lazy since I haven't updated, but I swear, it's not my fault.**

**So, after I did the last chapter I immediately started the next one, as I usually do. A few days later, when I was, like, 3/4's done with it, my laptop-SURPRISE,BITCHES- gets screwed up like it did the last time I lost a chapter. So, once it's fixed, I start it again. GUESS WHAT? My laptop effs up. AGAIN. When I get it back, AGAIN, I didn't even bother starting the damn chapter because-HOLY CRAP ITS EFFFED UP AGAIN SDNGJHKFSNGJHFSKNGKLFSJ:DANFJSDGOUHSRIDNGSDJHFK SSAAAADDDDFFFFAAAAACCCEEEE!111!**

**But, you know what? I'm just gonna start this thing, AGAIN, and pray to the computer gods that whatever bloodsucking, malicious, venomous, cowardly piece of molten dog turd of a virus is gone. But, I mean, hey-It's gone a few weeks without screwing up, so that's a good sign, right? **

**ANYWAY.**

**Some stuff to address before I start.**

**For the reviews, thank you. For the alerts, thank you. For the favorites, thank you. **

**Eipok- Who are Chaos, Nurgle, and Khorne? **

**One more thing- if it seems like not much happens in this chapter or it's a little short, it's because I just want to get this chapter out.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"I need to go in there and get some things. Are you three going to stay here or leave?" The Chief asked.

"We will stay here, although we'd like you to come back to our temple if you are welcome to the idea."

The red one said.

"I'll think about it. I'll be back in a few minutes." The Chief said, before getting back into the Pelican and taking off again.

**OoOoOoOoO**

"So, are you going to go?" Cortana asked over the radio once he was in the air.

"Yeah. I'm just gonna grab you, refuel, and get some things from the armory."

"Alright, I can refuel it for you. Anyway, I've been trying to make the most of the Dawn's sensors, and I think I might know what 'temple' that red one was talking about. Still, I don't have much yet and, again, I'm not sure if that's what she was talking about. But, speaking of that red one..."

"Alexa-something? Yeah, I had no clue what's up with her either."

Cortana laughed, much to the Chief's confusion.

"What?" He asked.

"I was talking about her outfit, Chief. It didn't a little...skimpy to you, did it?" She asked teasingly.

"You _know _that I'm not good with this sort of thing, Cortana. Besides, I was a bit more interested in the fact that she turned into-"

_**IMBECILE!**_

The word hit the Chief like a blow directly to the head, causing him to cry out. His vision began to blur.

The pain was tremendous, and the only thing he could hear was an echo.

However, it disappeared almost as quickly as it made itself known. Cortana's voice-filled with what actually sounded like genuine distress, not an artificial emotion-slowly returned to him.

"...John! John, are you okay?"

He looked up. His vision was clearing, and it didn't seem like he had screwed up any of the controls, to his relief.

"John, please answer me!" Cortana seemed even more frantic.

"I'm...here." He said slowly.

"Oh, thank goodness..."

The pain was almost all gone, and he could think clearly again. He knew, immediately, who the voice belonged to. What he didn't know was how the hell he had heard it. After all, the Gravemind was dead.

"I just...Cortana?"

"Yes, John?" If it was another situation, he would've asked her not to call him by his real name, but he didn't really care at that point.

"I think...I think I just heard the Gravemind." Cortana was silent for a few seconds.

"No way. You killed him. _We_ killed him."

"I know, believe me, I remember..." Neither of them talked for a while. They were both engrossed in their own thoughts. Eventually, though, Cortana broke the silence.

"Chief, I have a theory."

"I'm all ears."

"Well, Chief, I know that you're supposed to be all badass and all that, but...Chief, the sort of things that you've seen would have driven other types of people to the breaking point. I know that you're pretty good at...I don't know, not thinking about it, suppressing it, or whatever you do to keep yourself sane, but that doesn't make you invincible against this sort of thing. I mean, we killed the Gravemind. We both agree on that. But if you heard his voice, that can only mean two things. Either the worst has happened, and the Gravemind is alive, or...well, it wasn't the Gravemind. It was _you._"

Again, neither talked for a while as the Chief maneuvered the Pelican into the Dawn to refuel.

"You think that...what, I'm going insane?" He asked.

"Not insane, Chief, just...I don't know. I just think the Gravemind certainly took his toll on both of us. Maybe for you, it wasn't just physically." She was really hoping this wasn't going to piss him off. She doubted it would-John didn't take offense to all that much- but the only thing as bad as having the Gravemind alive (to her, at least) would be having the Chief pissed because she more or less called him crazy.

"Alright, well...maybe you're right, but let's just forget about it for now, okay?" He said.

"Sure. You can go get what you need from the armory. I'll get the drones to refuel the Pelican."

"Thanks."

**OoOoOoOoO**

When the Chief came back, he had a loaded rocket launcher and eight rockets with him. He boarded the Pelican after Cortana downloaded herself into his armor.

"I see you're being overly paranoid, as per usual." She said lightly.

"With _dragons? _Come on. I'm not sure if this thing would be able to even lock onto one of them,

never mind kill it."

"Well, let's hope we won't have to find out, hmm?"

"I'll agree with _that." _The Spartan admitted as he exited the Dawn.

The three women were still there, as the Chief had hoped. He landed next to them, but didn't get out of the Pelican. He instead spoke through the dropship's speakers.

"Alright, I'll go with you. Lead the way."

They again transformed, and flew away, with the Spartan following them.

"Hey, Chief?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe _I _should pilot this time. You know. Just in case."

The Chief chuckled, and Cortana's avatar smiled.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Alright, well, I said it was going to be short. This was less of an important chapter and more of a "one place to another"/I'm still alive one.**

**But anyway...Chiefy going a lil' bonkers? I mean, he might be awesome, but he's not completely devoid of emotion, and the Flood are pretty damn ugly. But I actually kind of liked the Gravemind. At least, when he wasn't trying to turn people into zombies.**

**Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try to get another chapter up as soon as I can, but we all know how that went last time, don't we?**

**See ya.**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm not going to offer any excuses for why I haven't updated because I don't have any. Well, anyway, the general consensus about the last chapter was that the whole gravemind thing was stupid, so I'll just pretend that didn't happen for a while. Or, if you all really, REALLY hate it, then I'll just change the chapter and remove that part. Oh yeah, and another thing. I know how slow I am with updating, so I'm kinda curious; should I keep the chapters at the same length that they have been at-hence, longer update times-or should I shorten down the chapters so I can get them out faster? Just kind of curious. **

**As always, thanks for the reviews and stuff, even if you do all hate the last chapter. I guess bad reviews are better than no reviews.**

**Chapter, go.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

The Chief had to give these things credit-they may have _looked _like a bunch of lizards with wings, but they sure as hell didn't _fly _like them. He wasn't even sure how they were able to fly in the first place-Deja had taught them that the reason-or at least one- that the Earth didn't have dinosaurs or any living thing bigger than an elephant on it was the fact that larger animals needed more oxygen to survive. Now, that would've been fine, but he knew that the oxygen on this planet was fit for humans and similar life forms to live-not something as big as a _dragon _to live, though. So, either those things had somehow evolved enough so that they needed less oxygen, or something else was going on.

"Alright, so I have a bit more info on that big tower I mentioned earlier. It's about thirty kilometers in this current direction, so that's probably where they're taking us. Also, I've detected quite a few heat signatures near that area. Most are far too large to be human or anything of similar size, so my guess is that there's more of these things." Cortana's avatar appeared on her pedestal and made a gesture to the group they were following. The Chief just grunted, kicked his legs up on the front of the cockpit, and laid his head-well, his helmet-back. He still attempted to look alert, despite the fact that his eyes were closed. His attempt proved futile, however.

"You're _tired? _Really, Chief?" Cortana turned to face him with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed-her usual looked she used when she was annoyed or disappointed by him.

"I mean, you just slept for over two months and now you're kicking back like you want to take a nap." She said.

"I didn't sleep, Cortana. I _froze. _You know that cryo isn't exactly restful, right?" He replied without adjusting his stance. He really was kind of tired. And hungry.

"Fine. I'll go easy on you this one time, but only because you saved the galaxy. Again."

"Listening to you ramble equates to saving the galaxy? Agreed."

"Are you saying that I'm _annoying?_"

"Well, I wasn't, but now that you mention it..." He smiled beneath his helmet.

"You little..." She stepped off of her pedestal- something that she was thankful she could do with her updated holographics- and appeared on one on the Chief's boots. He quickly shook his foot around a bit, and smiled even wider when Cortana pretended that she was losing her balance. She disappeared from his boot and reappeared right in front of his helmet, levitating.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" She said in irritation.

The Chief just chuckled, which was followed by Cortana giving him the evil eye.

"Better get ready, _jerk. _Only about thirteen kilometers left to the tower." She said after a while. The Chief grunted, took his legs off of the dashboard, and proceeded into the passenger section of the Pelican to retrieve his weapons.

**OoOoOoOoO**

An hour and about ten minutes. That's how long Korialstrasz's queen had been gone.

And he was about to fly out there himself to find her.

He sighed. It wasn't just the fact that he loved her and was concerned for her safety; while that certainly was a factor, the other reason was he was _bored. _There hadn't been anything to do for over three weeks. _Obviously_, when the odd meteor-like object had fallen from the sky, the queen had wanted to investigate. _Obviously_, Korialstrasz had thought she would take him with her. _Obviously, _he was wrong. She had claimed that, while she did want to bring him, the ambassadors of the other flights also were getting bored, and she didn't want to upset them-the reds needed the support of the other flights, and annoying their ambassadors was a just asking for a problem. When he asked why she didn't take him with the ambassadors, she said that she couldn't risk taking more than two others due to how easy to notice they'd be, though Korialstrasz didn't really understand how she _couldn't _be noticed, considering that she was almost as large as a small mountain. Still, he didn't question her-she was his queen, after all.

It wasn't long before a small dot appeared on the horizon, followed by two others. Good; clearly nobody had died. However, as the shapes grew larger, Korialstrasz noticed that there was another one slightly behind them. It definitely wasn't a dragon, since it was both too small and he couldn't see any wings on it. As it grew closer, he realized that it wasn't even a beast at all-it had a metallic gray color, and while it apparently _did _have wings on it, they were much shorter than that of his kinds'. In the front of the craft was what looked like a glass window, though it was tinted and didn't allow a view inside the craft. He also saw something below the craft's forward end-an odd, pole-like device that flared out at the end mounted on a larger box. He didn't know exactly what it was, but it reminded him of one of the dwarves' and gnomes' weapons- a gun, if he remembered correctly. Due to this, he was slightly unnerved by the fact that the flared end of the pole seemed to stay pointed at him despite the fact that the craft was moving.

Well, this was certainly odd.

**OoOoOoOoO**

The Chief kept his gaze focused on the humanoid figure standing on top of the tower, the seventy millimeter grenade launcher on the nose of the Pelican following his gaze. He had discerned that said figure was most likely the leader a while ago-his stature, the fact that the others on the tower seemed to stay behind him, and several other indicators made it quite obvious, actually.

"Chief, you can't have a staring match with someone if they can't even see your face." Cortana chimed in. She was obviously referring to the man he was looking at, as well as the tinted windows. Various bits of text and readouts flowed across his visor as Cortana gave him by-the-second updates. He paid attention to them only partially; while he trusted Cortana's observations, he still preferred to evaluate the environment himself. Besides, she wasn't giving him the info that he was looking for anyway-structural weaknesses in the tower, the number of visible enemies, things like that. Of course, that was probably because she wanted him to stay out of that sort of mindset-the plan was to attempt diplomacy, after all, not run in shooting. Still, over thirty years of mental conditioning wasn't exactly easy to shake off.

The three creatures that he was following landed on the tower-which was, thankfully, big enough for them all-before switching back to their humanoid forms. The Chief was still a little unnerved about that.

Nevertheless, he deftly turned the Pelican around so that it was facing out over the tundra before engaging the landing gear and gently dropping the large aircraft onto the stone floor of the tower. Though he didn't say anything, a small piece of him was proud of him for the landing. Maybe that refuted Cortana's earlier comment back when he was taking the Pelican out of the Dawn. As the Chief opened the bay doors and stepped out into the light, he immediately notice something that annoyed him.

Everyone was staring at him.

It wasn't that he wasn't used to stares- he was a Spartan, after all. What genetically modified, power-armored killing machine of a soldier _wouldn't _draw some attention? Still, it got old fast, and since the majority of the people who had gawked at him were marines that he just ignored, the fact that he had to pay attention to these people irritated him a bit.

"What?" He growled out, in a tone perhaps a bit more hostile than he had intended.

Nobody answered him. No big surprise there. Apparently the extreme intimidation factor of Spartans carried over to people who didn't even know them. He was glad for it, though; the Spartans' mastery of the art of intimidation was one of the many things that he was proud of them for. Well, proud for them back when they were still alive...

_Again_, he thought, _not the time._

Alexastrasza- at least, that's what he thought he remember her saying- stepped out into the open. Apparently, the majority of the onlookers took this as a sign to go back to their regular business, to the Chief's relief. The sheer number of eyes that had been looking at him had been getting really annoying. He noticed that the man that he had dubbed the head honcho wasn't one of those who left.

"I apologize for that. They are simply curious about you." Alexastrasza said. The Chief gave a barely visible nod in acknowledgment.

"My queen, may I ask who this being is?" The Chief realized that the one speaking was the boss, again. Well, the boss of the place when the red one wasn't there, at least; if she's his 'queen', then obviously she's the one in charge. The fact that he had asked her and not him immediately made the Chief realize that this man did not like him. He didn't care much, though. The Chief had got enough hate from Colonel Ackerson. Back when he was alive, at least. Cortana had told him back on earth that the Colonel was dead. Still, while said officer really hated him, the Chief couldn't deny that his death was unfortunate. From what he'd heard, Ackerson had been a fine leader.

"I don't believe that you ever told me your name, in fact." Alexastrasza said, turning to him. He waited a moment before responding.

"The Master Chief."

The woman's second in command snorted at the Chief. It was quite obvious that he disliked the Spartan at this point. Again, the Chief was quite indifferent. Maybe he'd get a laugh out of this guy. The second in command then spoke.

"Your _real _name?" He asked, although it sounded more like a demand.

"Don't have one." Not one that the Chief wanted to give, that is. The pissed off one snorted, again.

"There's no need for hostility, Korialstrasz. The...Master Chief... has assured me that he didn't wish to harm us." Alexastrasza said. The Chief never actually assured her of anything, but he didn't care. He really didn't intend on shooting them. Not yet, at least.

"Well, I believe that we both have question for each other, so you may-" She started, before a loud roar interrupted her. Everyone on the tower immediately started scanning the horizon with a much more alert look on their faces. The Chief had no clue as to why everyone was staring at the sky and not the source of the noise, but the reason soon became apparent as a group of those on the tower switched into their dragon forms and took off, starting to circle the tower. Another group then did the same thing, followed by the remainder of the people on the tower besides the Chief, Alexastrasza, and Korialstrasz.

"What's going on?" The Chief asked, keeping his voice calm.

"We're under attack!" Korialstrasz said before switching into his other form- which was almost as large as Alexastrasza's- and joining the other dragons in circling the tower. The Chief quickly noticed what a larger group was looking at- another group of the dragons, farther away but coming closer. He used his helmet to zoom in on them, and noticed that their scales were blue instead of red. Odd.

Before he knew it, the blue were upon the red, and the sounds of aerial battle echoed around him. He looked to his side as realized Alexastrasza was nowhere to be found. He sighed.

Decision time. Either help the red ones, and probably start a war with the blue, or don't do anything and possibly get the red ones pissed off.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Cortana asked in his ear. The Chief grunted. He had never been one to stand by in the middle of a battle, after all.

He took the rocket launcher off of his back, quickly locked onto a blue dragon, and fired upon his first target of the day.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Yep. Another cliffhanger. You guys must REALLY hate me now. :) Still, I'm just happy to get rid of dialogue and boring stuff for a while, and actually write some action.**

**Well, people, it's ten at night, which is pretty damn late for me. See you tomorrow.**

**I hope you enjoyed it! **


	7. Chapter 7

**Well, good news: school is pretty much over. At the of writing this sentence, I have only one test left for the year. Will this mean that I'll update faster?**

**No comment.**

**ANYWAY. Time for some action! I've found it surprising that I've written six chapters for this story and only the first had combat in it. Yeah, all of what, like two lines or something? Well, I think it's about time to remedy that.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

While more than two months of cryo-sleep certainly had made his body a bit sluggish, the Chief quickly found out that he was more than able to join in on the aerial battle before him.

And, as much as he wouldn't like to admit it, he _relished _in it.

It probably wasn't healthy for him, mentally or physically, to be enjoying putting his life on the line again, but he didn't really care. He had gone over two months without firing a weapon, and _damn _it felt good.

His first target-a blue dragon who was making its way into the battle- had seen the rocket coming at him, and while it was smart enough to realize that the object was dangerous, it was clearly _not _smart enough to realize that the rocket had heat-seeking capabilities.

The Chief had to admit that while those things were big, he really didn't expect it to hold anywhere near as much blood as the amount that went flying in every direction. The 102 millimeter shaped charge had clearly done its job, and then some. Not that he was complaining, of course. He quickly took aim at another target.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeee..._

Clear tone.

The Chief fired, and another of the beasts was hurled to the ground. Evidently, both sides had begun to realize that the giant explosions weren't coming from one of their own, though they didn't appear to know exactly who was responsible. The Chief almost found himself disappointed by that; he would've been glad to get some hostile attention if it meant that the blues wold focus on him and not the reds. His decided objective was to protect-or at least _not shoot- _the red ones, after all. Not that big of a deal, though- their lack of attention gave him the time to load another dual tube of rockets into the launcher.

He quickly noticed another dragon, although this one seemed different from the rest; it was larger, and it seemed to have some kind of odd field surrounding it.

"You notice that? It looks like some kind of barrier to me." Cortana said, doing her best to assist him-she couldn't do much in the way of cyberwarfare in the current situation. The Chief gave a barely noticeable nod before bringing the launcher up and locking on. By that point, several of the red dragons had noticed the big one as well, and were flying towards it. Taking this as a sign that it was of a higher rank than the others, the Chief fired.

It took the rocket less than two seconds to get to its target. Despite the fact that the barrier had evidently been destroyed, the dragon behind it didn't seem to have wounds with the degree of severity that the Chief had anticipated. It even managed to stay flying for a second or so, but it dropped to the ground a few seconds later. Whether that was from the rocket finishing it off or the red dragons attacking it, the Chief didn't know.

"Chief! Left!" Cortana yelled into his ear just as he noticed a large red dot moving towards him on his motion sensor. He quickly looked in that direction just as a blue dragon swooped down towards him. By this time, it was too close for the Chief to fire the remaining rocket in the launcher without possibly blowing himself up along with his target. Knowing this, he quickly rolled forwards. The dragon missed him, but just barely; if he had waited for half a second longer, he probably would've been in the thing's mouth. He made a mental note to increase the range on his motion sensor.

Not to let the opportunity go to waste, the Chief quickly lined up with the dragon, who was now turning around for a second attempt. He knew that he wasn't going to have enough time for a lock on, but if his target was just going to blindly charge at him like it did last time, he wouldn't need one. The dragon opened its jaws just as it lined up with the Chief before letting out what would've been an ear-splitting roar, had the Spartan's helmet's systems not reduced the noise to a tolerable level. Even so, it was still quite loud-however, its roar was cut short from the HEAT rocket that detonated in the thing's open mouth. While the shock wave forced the Chief to take a step back, it wasn't enough to knock the half-ton Spartan over.

He reloaded, then scanned around for another target. He quickly found one-this one was a bit bigger than any of the others he'd seen so far, and like the other large one, it had the strange barrier-like effect surrounding it. Despite the fact that the beast was staring right at the Chief, it wasn't making any movements to attack him, but the Chief didn't really blame the thing. Seeing the remains of its fallen comrade smoldering at the super-soldier's feet must've looked damn intimidating. The Chief had no doubt that the effect was intensified when he swiveled the rocket launcher up to the thing.

Clearly, it was, since when the dragon roared, all of its brethren attempted to withdraw from the battle and retreat. Of course, their efforts were hampered by the attacks of the reds, who clearly weren't receptive to the idea of letting the offending party leave without a fight. Despite this, some of the blues-the large one, among them- were able to escape. The Chief didn't know if that was due to the blues being faster or the reds not wanting to go too far away by chasing them.

He lowered the rocket launcher and watched as Korialstrasz and Alexastrasza- _damn,_ he thought, _these people have long names_-landed on the top of the tower and started at him. Had he not been through so much in his life, he may have felt intimidated by the two giant beasts on either side of him. Even so, he had to admit that he did feel quite...uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he focused his gaze on the larger one, Alexastrasza.

**OoOoOoOoO**

The Queen had to admit, while she had experienced a lot of things in her _long _life, watching a mortal- a tiny, usually inconsequential creature- bring down four fully grown blue drakes while applying almost no effort at all certainly was not one of them. She was the guardian of all life, but she couldn't deny the fact that she was impressed.

She was quite eager to figure out exactly what the odd weapon the soldier used was. It certainly wasn't anything she had seen before. And of course, where he had come from. He said that he'd answer more questions once he arrived at the temple, and now that he was here, she was-

"Well, are you going to say something, or should we go?" The voice, although it came from the soldier, surely wasn't _his. _It was feminine, and while its words had a little uncertainty in them, they lacked the subtle hostility of the man's.

Then, to the her surprise, a strange blue glow appeared over the armored soldier's shoulder. To her even greater surprise, the glow quickly took the shape of a person. A woman, as the Queen's hawk-like eyes were quickly able to recognize. The oddest part, however, was the woman's lack of clothes. In place of this, strange symbols washed over her form from head to toe. The man-turned his head to look at the woman.

"Really?"

His voice, though appearing deadpan, had a faint trace of humor in it.

"Well, I figured that _you _sure as hell aren't going to sit here and talk." The woman said.

Well, this was going to be interesting.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Okay, I know it's short, and stupid, and other derogatory terms that begin with the letter S, but I just wanted to get this one out kind of as an apology for not updating quickly. I hope you enjoyed it; I actually enjoyed writing it quite a bit. More than DIALOGUE and BORING STUFF, that's for sure. Action FTW.**

**Well, anyway, see you guys!**


	8. Chapter 8

**So, ummmm...hi.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

When the Chief had first discovered the three women meddling with his Pelican- and when one of them turned into an honest-to-god dragon in front of his eyes-a part of him, however small, was relieved. Relieved that, after landing on a planet that both he and Cortana had assumed would be devoid of intelligent life, he (or, more realistically, Cortana) wouldn't die of boredom. A huge ball full of nothing but vegetation and perhaps the occasional forest critter would only have kept Cortana occupied for, at most, a few days. In all, he was almost _glad _that he had landed in a world where giant lizards with wings wanted to eat him. It was interesting.

Which was why he found it all the more annoying that, no matter how exotic the location, no matter how dangerous the mission, and no matter how cunning his enemies, Cortana always-_always- _found some way to bore him.

Before the two beasts in front of him could even get a word out of their mouths, she had already burst into a series of questions that he, in all honesty, hadn't even thought of asking.

"How many of you are there?" 

"How long do you live, on average?"

"How do you fly?"

"Why are you different colors?"

And, of course, the one he dreaded.

"Would you mind if we performed some experiments on you?"

After finally calming the A.I. down, she apologized and introduced herself, her hologram holding her hands calmly behind her back.

"Sorry, sorry. I just got a bit carried away there. As my big friend here said, my name is Cortana. Pleasure to meet you." She smiled, although the Chief wasn't sure if the towering creatures before him could even see it. Perhaps because of this, they decided to revert back to their humanoid forms. The Chief welcomed the fact that he was no longer staring at creatures with jaws large enough to swallow him.

"We have a lot of questions to ask, if you wouldn't mind. Of course, you probably have some as well, hmm?" Hand on her hip. Practically her default pose.

"Yes, I would like some explanations of a few things. However, given the fact that you appear to be missing some of the more...basic...knowledge of this world, please, ask what you wish and I will answer to the best of my ability." The Chief wasn't sure what the horned woman was referring to when she said 'basic knowledge', but he guessed that dragons and magic were just two things common here. The idea almost made him chuckle at how ridiculous it sounded.

"Well, first things first.. Where are we?" Cortana asked. Alexastrasza raised an eyebrow before answering.

"You are at Wyrmrest Temple, on the continent of Northrend, in the world known as Azeroth."

"Have you heard of the UNSC?"

"No, although I admit I am not completely familiar with all mortal organizations. This is what I assume your...'UNSC' is, correct?" Cortana nodded.

"Who or what are you, exactly? I believe you said you were the 'Queen of the Red Dragonflight' earlier, but that doesn't really ring a bell."

"My flight and I are the guardians of life here on Azeroth; as you can discern from the name, my flight is distinguished by our red scales." Guardians of life? They didn't seem to have much difficulty in killing their blue brethren.

"And the Blue ones that we just eliminated? If you are the guardians of life, what are they, and why are you hostile to them?" Both Cortana and the Chief were sincerely hoping that they had picked the right side in this conflict.

"They are the blue flight, the guardians of magic. Or, perhaps the correct word would be _were _the guardians of magic. Lately, their leader, Malygos, has been...less than friendly toward many in this world. This is why we are enemies." The Chief was relieved; unless she was lying, he was pretty sure that they had allied with the right people.

"Earlier, before we met you, we saw a group of other people; some appeared to be humans, while others seemed to have dwarfism or something like that. Who were they?"

"I believe that your 'Pelican' had landed close to an Alliance stronghold. Valiance..hold? Keep? Something of the like. The Alliance is a very large organization composed of Humanity-your kind, correct?- the Dwarves, the Gnomes, Night Elves, and relatively recently, the Draenei. They are opposed to the Horde, which is comprised of the Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Blood Elves, and Forsaken."

Draenei? Elves? Tauren? Forsaken? So many unknown terms. And what exactly did she mean by 'opposed to'? Evidently, Alexastrasza saw the confusion on Cortana's face, and replied.

"You don't know about these races?"

"This big oaf right here _is _human, and we have heard of dwarves and gnomes, although neither are what we know as a species. Where we come from, the former are those with a birth defect-not that I'm implying that they are inferior- and the latter are...well, inanimate objects you put in a garden."

While the Chief glared at Cortana for her jab at him, Alexastrasza looked at her like she had grown an extra head. Seeing this, Cortana assumed that she had just made the two of them look like nutjobs.

"...and judging by the look on your face, that probably made less than no sense to you. Suffice to say, these other races are news to us, as are the Alliance and Horde. Could you give us a bit more on them?"

Sighing, Alexastrasza replied.

"I can, and I would be willing to at a later time. However, the history of this world's races and factions is something that would take hours to explain fully. Suffice to say, numerous conflicts and events have caused the Horde and Alliance to develop the relationship they hold today- they are not quite at war, but are far from friendly."

This was an interesting situation. While humanity was here on this planet, and his duty as of the last thirty years was to protect his species, the Chief wasn't sure what the history of this place's humanity entailed; if they were like some of the less desirable groups from his species' history, then they were going to have a bit of problem. Then again, despite the fact that the UNSC had achieved a relatively moral society during his life, he knew that it certainly had some moments that it was less than keen to share. Hell, _he _had even been responsible for some of them during a few of his missions against the Insurrectionists. Events that would not leave his conscience, despite how much he tried to forget them. Many other veterans- some of his other SPARTANS and his former friend, Sergeant Johnson- shared these thoughts.

Putting his internal debate aside, the Chief listened as Cortana continued to question the woman in front of him.

"Alright, then. Anything else we should know about this world?" Alexastrasza paused for a moment, seeming to think of anything else that was both important and wouldn't take the better part of an afternoon to explain.

"The Horde and Alliance-or maybe the entire world- both have a common enemy here in Northrend. He is known as the Lich King; the former King Arthas Menethil, corrupted by the blade known as-" She paused midsetence.

"Well, that's, in all honesty, another event that would take a while to tell you about. In summary, the Lich King wields a powerful weapon, Frostmourne, and commands a powerful and vast army of undead, known as the Scourge. His aim is to turn the whole of Northrend, and if possible, the world, to his cause. He is an enemy of almost every living thing, my flight included." Cortana opened a private comm. link to her companion.

"Well, I suppose we _are _going to have something to use our toys on." The Chief grunted in agreement.

"Our tower has a rather expansive library that we would be willing to let you visit. If it cannot answer all of your questions, most of us in this place have been among the living long enough to fill any gaps in this world's history for you. However, before you go, I'd like to ask you two a few questions of my own."

Despite the fact that the Chief had pointed a gun at- and threatened to shoot- her, this woman sure was friendly. Then again, he doubted that bullets would have done much against a creature the size of house and sporting armored scales to boot, and she most likely thought the same. Figuring answering Alexastrasza's questions was the least they could do, Cortana agreed.

"Who are you, where are you from, and how did you get here?" An obvious first question.

"My name is Cortana. I am an artificial intelligence; essentially, a very highly advanced machine, although personally I, and quite a few people where I come from, believe that artificial intelligences are a bit more than that. Although I guess that's exactly what a non-sentient machine would say, huh?" She smiled with a friendly look, and resumed talking.

"Anyway, I'm sort of this big guy's companion. I assist him in combat and things of the like. Oh, and what you're seeing right now isn't actually me; it's just a...well, I suppose the word image would be the easiest way to describe it. It's not actually a physical body." Cortana demonstrated this by sticking her "hand" in the Chief's helmet. Her arm materialized behind his visor, and he hissed at her on a private line. If they weren't in the presence of their current company, the Chief knew that she would've stuck her tongue out at him.

Alexastrasza turned to the Chief and spoke.

"And you? You said your name was the Master Chief, but surely you must have an_ actual _name." The Chief responded with a shrug, his most common expression when dealing with new people. Or any people, if he was being honest. However, this didn't seem to satisfy the woman in front of him. He thought about telling her his real name, but quickly dismissed the idea. At this point he could probably count the number of living people who actually knew his name on one hand; Cortana and Hood were the only ones who immediately came to mind, and he wasn't even positive that Hood was still alive. Maybe some surviving ONI spooks who had worked on the SPARTAN project knew it, but he doubted it. The kind of people on the project, with the exception of Halsey and a few others, tended to not live long lives. He supposed that it came with the job.

"As I said, I do not. My full designation is Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117, member of the United Nations Space Command Navy, Special Weapons Division."

Damn, he was talking quite a bit today. Cryo wasn't supposed to make you chatty.

"Spartan-117?"

"Yes, the Chief here is a super-soldier, part of the SPARTAN II program. I'm afraid that is about all we can tell you about that, however. As for where we come from...well, the full story would take a damn long time to explain, and we're not even sure of how we got here in the first place. I suppose the best way to describe it is that we come from a world where...magic, and dragons, and any of the races you described, do not exist. Instead, mankind has built an empire through the development of technology. As you can probably guess, we've got some pretty advanced stuff; I don't mean to brag, but I would be a good example of that. The Chief here, too."

"Your civilization has no magic? At all?"

"Correct. We have created methods of transportation, weapons of war, extremely powerful tools, and many, many other things, through the use of technology and science. What we've shown you today is evidence of that."

Alexastrasza simply stared. Hell, everyone on the tower stared.

**OoOoOoOoO**

The queen of the red dragonflight, again, had to admit that she was surprised. She was talking to a machine smart enough to make a joke at her partner's expense- a partner who was wielding a weapon powerful enough to destroy several of her kind seemingly without effort, and flying a craft that could keep up with a dragon. And if that wasn't enough, they made it all without magic; with technology, something most of her kind regarded as little more than an interesting but ultimately trivial creation of mortals.

Alexastrasza was glad. Anything that was new to her nowadays was welcome. Well, most things, anyway. She smiled at her guests.

"I must say, I am eager to learn more about your people. However, that can wait for later. One more question, if you don't mind. What do you plan to do here?" While she was interested in these newcomers, she couldn't let them use such deadly weaponry on the innocents of this world. Even if that meant having to use _her _weaponry on them. Hopefully, however, it wouldn't come to that. The blue machine, Cortana, spoke, as she had for most of the conversation. She certainly seemed to be more talkative than her armored companion.

"Well, after we're done here, we're probably going to go back to our ship. As you saw, our landing was... well, I believe that I did the most I could with half of a frigate. That said, we need to get back there and run damage control. I'm not sure what we're going to do after that; probably gather some more information on this world, maybe meet some of it's important people, if they let us. After that..." She left the sentence incomplete, and shrugged.

"Perhaps we can come to an agreement, then. Normally, I do not attempt to enlist the assistance of mortals, but given the fact that we are at war with the Blue Dragonflight, the Lich King, and countless other groups, I would gladly accept your help. In return, we will allow you use our temple, and if possible, arrange a meeting or two with the leaders of the Horde and Alliance, and perhaps some others. Is this agreeable with you?"

Cortana looked at her companion for a moment before disappearing from his shoulder. He tilted his head down slightly, shifting his focus away from Alexastrasza. Perhaps the two were somehow communicating in private?

After a few seconds, the Master Chief tilted his head back up, and Cortana reappeared on his shoulder, one hand at her side and one on her hip. The blue-tinted machine spoke.

"Alright, seems fair to us. What exactly would you want us to do?"

"You've demonstrated here that you are no stranger to combat. While my flight is certainly capable of dispatching the majority of our enemies with no great issue, we are not as numerous as we once were; our forces are spread rather thin. If you could relieve the pressure from some of our brethren, we could both better defend this temple and thwart the Scourge and Blue Dragonflight. Most of your battles will be against them." The 'artificial intelligence' nodded her head.

"Sounds good. Do you mind if we leave the Pelican up here for the time being?"

"No, and I will assure you that it will not be tampered with." Although she was curious about their guests' contraptions, the queen did not want any of her flight to anger them.

"Thanks. Well, we'd like to go to that library now..."

**OoOoOoOoO**

High above the frozen wastes of Icecrown, atop the massive citadel of twisted steel that dominated the entire glacier, an entity stirred.

He did not know what had happened. Rather, Frostmourne gave off one of it's chilling feelings that Arthas was now so horribly familiar with; a cold that pierced the very soul, a cold that could not be matched by anything on Azeroth. A cold that Frostmourne, the wretched blade that controlled his very being, emitted when it was awoken. When it was _angry. _

He didn't know why.

It didn't matter why.

Whatever it was would perish, just as all others that opposed the sword had perished. Nothing could stop the damn blade. He had learned that the hard way.

The Lich King sank back into his throne of ice, and resumed his brooding.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**No excuses. Just decided a few days ago to reread this story, and for some reason I got an urge to write a new chapter for it. I honestly don't know why I stopped-it's not like I didn't know what to write next, I did. I just never got around to it.**

**Well, I probably can't stop you from getting angry at me. Or blame you. So yeah. That's about it.**

**Anyway, there was some stuff I didn't put in their little discussion because I felt that a solid wall of dialogue was going to be a bit too boring for both you guys and me. I think I'll finish it off next chapter. Gimme a few years, then check back. Maybe that chapter will be up.**

…**.maybe.**

**D: **


	9. Chapter 9

**Heeey, it hasn't been a year! Cool.**

**To my reviewers-**

**New Universe Returns-I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna include the Didact and forerunner stuff. Still, Freedom Guard's whole Naaru-Forerunner connection was pretty creative; maybe it's not a bad idea.**

**SPARTAN-626- I was thinking about something like that(the Chief getting a sword to rival Frostmourne). Again, not positive that I'm going to have it in there, but it's certainly a nice idea. I might. And while I've never played Hellgate London, I looked at that sword and I gotta say, it does look pretty damn sweet.**

**Anyway. CHAPTER AWAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"Hey, Chief. Nap time's over. Wakey Wakey."

The Chief opened his eyes to the sight of Cortana sitting on the control panel that his feet were resting on. Glad that his momentary dozing off wasn't interrupted by anything (namely any more overgrown lizards trying to eat him), he got up and made his way to the back of the Pelican, confident that Cortana could land it on her own.

"Alright, so first we have to lock up the Dawn, and move everything important to its more secure rooms. Can't leave our toys lying around the gigantic hole in the ship, after all. Then, I guess you can get some grub. Oh, and make sure that you take off your armor and check that you don't have any spare holes in you."

"I'm fine." The Chief grunted as he stepped out from the Pelican's troop bay and into the Hangar of the Dawn.

"Don't give me that, John. You're a tough guy, I'll admit, but being a hardass isn't much protection against high explosives, plasma, and that little fall you took on your way back to Earth." The Chief was tempted to tell her that, in fact, being a hardass was the only reason that he was still alive, but quickly thought better of it. He was stubborn. When it came to things like this, however, she was even more so. The Chief gave a small sigh before heading towards the opened sections of the Dawn, thinking about what the two had learned from the tower's library.

As soon as their conversation with Alexastrasza had ended, Cortana had told-no, _ordered-_him to head down there as fast as possible. He couldn't blame her, though; he was just as curious as she was. Because Cortana was obviously faster than reading at him (being able to go through a page in about a second), he simply held the books out in front of him and turned the pages regularly. He knew that it probably looked odd to the librarian-who he had discovered was another dragon taking the disguise of one of those 'blood elves' that Alexastrasza had mentioned. She appeared quite a bit like a human, save for the fact that she was a bit shorter and had some damn big ears. Regardless, he was glad that Cortana was with him; the library was _big. _Even going at Cortana's frantic pace, it had taken them around an hour to get through what his companion had deemed an acceptable amount of books.

Oh, but it was _worth it. _

Dates, names, places, events... it had felt like they knew everything. Alexastrasza wasn't exaggerating when she had said that the Horde and Alliance had some history, though most of it was less than friendly. The first, second, and third wars, the Burning Legion, Ragnaros...Cortana had told him so much new information, it seemed almost surreal. Perhaps most important, however, was what they had learned about their enemy, the Lich King; that he was the former king Arthas Menethil, corrupted by a sword. The Chief didn't understand how a hunk of metal could change a person from a paragon of virtue into an enemy of all life, but then again, he was in a world with dragons and magic. Someone could have told him that the sky was green, and it wouldn't have seemed any less plausible than some of the things he had already seen.

As he moved some crates back into the heart of the Dawn, the Chief pondered what all of this meant for them. They had pledged their service to Alexastrasza, and while the Chief was confident both that her cause was the right one and that he and Cortana could handle whatever the dragon threw at them, he still had an odd feeling in his gut. Perhaps it was nothing. Then again, his gut had saved his life on more than one occasion.

Putting aside these thoughts, the Chief finished moving the crates, weapons, and other assorted items into the Dawn, and proceeded towards the mess hall. He wondered how much food was left in the dispensers; he knew that he may need to start hunting if their supplies got low.

Choosing the first item that appeared on the menu, he picked up the tray that the machine spat out and left for the crew quarters. He honestly didn't care what meal he got. Despite how long they had been around, MREs- or rather, all military food in general- still tasted the same (that is to say, somewhere between sawdust and a dead rat). Hunting was beginning to seem like a better and better option.

Arriving at one of the officer's rooms, the Chief put the tray down on the cot and took his helmet off. It almost seemed rude, to use someone else's room, but he reminded himself that the previous occupant was either dead, and hence probably wouldn't care, or the Chief had saved their life, and would want to repay him. Or at least, that was his justification, as he looked in the mirror above the room's sink.

His brown hair had grown out a bit too far for his liking, and he had more than a little bit of fur on his face, interrupted only by two scars-a small vertical one to the right of his lip that he got during his training, and a larger, diagonal one on the same side received from a brute that managed to catch him with his helmet off and almost cut his throat with the blade of a spike rifle. Because of that event, John had made it a point to almost always wear the helmet.

Although he and the other SPARTANS technically had bodies of those in their mid-twenties due to both their augmentations and the age-slowing effects of cryo-sleep, he guessed that the effects of war on his face might be an indicator of his true age- somewhere in his forties. Deciding to eat and clean himself up first, the supersoldier looked around for a razor and some shaving cream. Just as he found them in a cabinet, Cortana's voice came over the ship-wide announcement system.

"Chief, I just launched three of the ship's remaining UAVs. I decided to keep one above the Dawn to monitor the area, and to send one to that Valiance Keep place that Alexastrasza talked about and one to Warsong Hold." That place. Along with history books, the Chief and Cortana also found a few atlases and things of the like. Most were outdated, but a few included relatively new settlements, such as the Horde's main base of operations in the Borean Tundra- Warsong Hold.

"It shouldn't take them long to get to where I sent them- an hour or two, tops. I'll send another one out when you go on a mission to give you some eyes in the sky."

With a clean face and full stomach, the Chief began the arduous task of removing his armor, deactivating the magnetic clamps of one piece at a time.

"Anyway, I was thinking about this whole magic thing, and while we learned a lot from that tower's library, I still want to get my hands on something magical that I can actually examine back in the ship. Remember how I said that some mages use staffs to help them cast spells and whatnot? If you could get me one of those, that would be dandy." The Chief frowned, wondering how he could obtain one. Knowing this, Cortana continued.

"And by 'get', I mean you're probably going to have to pry it from some poor dead guy's hands. Assuming that you're going up against mages, which I'd bet you will."

Wondering why he wasn't surprised, John took off the main breastplate of his MJOLNIR. This was one reason why he never enjoyed being out his armor- despite how effective it was in battle, it was a bitch to put it on and take it off. Usually, a group of engineers assisted in the process just to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

After he finally removed the last of his armor, the Chief quickly stripped out of the bodysuit underneath, leaving him wearing navy boxer-shorts. Damning himself for forgetting a pair of clothes, the he went over to the mirror and examined his injuries. Although his armor had prevented the majority of freezer burn-a side effect of going into cryo-sleep- he still noticed a few parts of his skin reddened. A large bandage also covered most of his right shoulder, which had been severely burned when a grunt had managed to hit him with an overcharged plasma pistol shot when his shields were down. Though it didn't cause that much pain now, he didn't want to take the bandage off; when he had examined it on his way to the Ark, it looked like someone had jammed a blowtorch against his shoulder and stopped only when it resembled a severely overcooked slab of meat. However, neither were that concerning to him. The only thing that he thought might have posed a problem was the severe bruising he sustained during his fall from the Forerunner Dreadnaught. Though his method of getting to Earth was certainly quick, taking a fall from several kilometers up with nothing but his armor and a hunk of metal for protection left him with massive bruises on his back and a few broken bones. Thankfully, neither were that life-threatening for him. Painful, oh yes, but not life-threatening.

Content with his state, the Chief began to put his armor back on.

**OoOoOoOoO**

Hayard knew that he couldn't afford to doze off like he had been for the past several days. Sleeping in was nice. Getting absolutely smashed every night was nice. Flirting with attractive women was nice. Running out of money because he was a lazy bastard, however...

Plus he was going to have to pay for a dinner for two tonight.

Sighing, he got up out of bed. More mercenary work, he supposed. Ever since he arrived in Valiance Keep, that was pretty much all he had been doing- someone wanted something dead, and they were willing to pay. Most of the time, it had just been one of some kind of creature native to Northrend. The continent certainly had some diverse wildlife; pity that almost all of it wanted to kill him. Nerubians, Scourge, Naga, even a few Kvaldir, Oh, he _hated _those guys.

His room was a mess. Although he knew that the sensible thing to do would probably be keeping it clean, Hayard at least had a rough idea of where everything was. Plus, when he came back after a long day of fighting, the last thing that he wanted to worry about was keeping his room tidy; actually, the only thing he wanted to worry about was falling face-first into his bed. He managed to find his mail armor, its various pieces strewn about the room in random places. After putting it on, he made his way to the chest sitting across from his bed. There, he kept his sword and dagger, but not his rifle. The thing was too long to fit in the box, so he instead propped it up carefully against the wall. It was about the only thing in the room that he actually tried to keep track of, given that he had spent seemingly more gold buying it than the entire treasury of Stormwind contained. Still, the thing was certainly worth the money; not only did hit like a damn horse (and kick like one), but it was practically the cutting edge of long-range, hand-held weaponry. Or at least, that's what the salesman had told him. Still, the rifle sure did perform adequately.

When he left the comfort of the inn, the man was momentarily blinded by the sun. Apparently, even the dismally cold Northrend had some days of decent weather. As he continued to ponder the weather of the continent that he had the misfortune of setting foot on, Hayard saw something that made him both elated and nervous as all hell.

_Her. _

The Draenei that he had so bluntly (and successfully!) hit on last night. When he had seen her last, she was wearing simple clothes; most people did when they were at the inn. Now, however, the woman had donned a brilliant white robe with golden linings, making her look even more stunning in his eyes. After he came out of his stupor, Hayard realized that she was most likely a priestess. He had only limited experience with Draenei, but he remembered hearing from one of his comrades here at the Keep that most were champions of the Light, some becoming priests and priestesses, and others paladins and...paladesses, he guessed. Regardless, she hadn't seen him yet, instead focusing on the Keep's message board. The board was where most of the freelancers in the keep, himself included, received their work-it almost always had some combat-related jobs available. Tracking down something, defending against something, or just otherwise killing _something. _

Deciding to approach her, Hayard took a step forward. Before he could get far, however, a large hand grabbed his arm and turned him around. He turned his gaze downwards and immediately found the face of Brukut.

"Aye, laddy! I never got the chance to say, that was some damn fine drinkin' ye did last night!" The short little man chuckled heartily. No one was this happy in the morning unless they had a few drinks in them. Then again, Hayard wasn't sure if there had been a moment in his life in which he'd seen Brukut without some alcohol in him.

"Yeah, I gotta admit, stuff was pretty damn strong. I gotta say though, I didn't do it just for the money..." As he finished his sentence, Hayard turned his head slightly to look at the beauty behind him, who was thankfully still examining the board. Seeing who Hayard was looking at, the dwarf chuckled yet again, but brought his voice down a bit.

"Thought I saw you givin' her looks. And I guess that explains why you had that dopey ol' grin on your face after you got knocked flat on yer arse." Hayard turned around and eyed his friend angrily.

"Hey, I may have been..._mildly effected _by that stuff, but I was not on my ass."

"Oi, yer right laddy. You wasn't on yer arse. You was almost on the floor."

Rolling his eyes, Hayard lightly punched him in the shoulder.

"Yeah, well if you'll excuse me, the master of romance has a veritable goddess to seduce."

Although he turned around before he could see Brukut's reaction, Hayard heard him almost lose it as he walked away, sounding like he was going to laugh himself into unconsciousness (which he had done at least once before). Ignoring him, the human walked up behind the object of his affections.

_Alright, Hayard. Confident. Be confident._

Hearing someone behind her, the Draenei turned around to examine the disturbance. Seeing who it was, she faced him with another stupefying smile. Hayard did his best to return it before speaking.

"And just what are _you _doing here, young lady?" She gave a slight chuckle in response.

"Exactly what you are, I'd imagine. Normally I'd be content to stay here and heal the wounded, but there seems to be a bit of a shortage lately. A good thing, no doubt, but it means I need to find something else to support myself."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. If it were up to me, I'd spend seventy percent of the time sleeping and twenty percent drinking." Again, she laughed. He wasn't sure if he looked like an idiot or not, but if he did, at least she was getting a kick out of it.

"And the other ten percent?"

_Oh god oh god oh god why am I so damn stupid?_

Having to think quickly to make up for his lapse in mathematical prowess, Hayard said the first thing that came to his mind.

"Flirting with beautiful women, of course." Despite having no idea where his response came from, the man complimented his flirtation with what he hoped was a decent smile.

The draenei immediately turned a shade of blue even darker than what he had seen last night, and giggled. Maybe in order to distract him from how flustered she was, she spoke.

"Although I am confident in my medical abilities, I'm afraid that my combat knowledge is somewhat limited. You, on the other hand..." She left the sentence unfinished and instead nodded towards the rifle on his back.

"...you look noticeably more suited for this line of work. Perhaps we could work together, hmm?" Yes, technically she had _asked, _but her offer was next to impossible to turn down.

"Sure! Let's see what's on the menu today..."

**OoOoOoOoO**

After finishing his meal and determining that his injuries were (probably) not going to have him keel over at any moment, the Chief had decided to head over to the armory and take stock of their munitions. He and Cortana had realized that, if they were going to get their feet wet in this world, they would need either a way to manufacture ammunition or alternative weapons. When the Chief brought up the fact that the Dawn had been loaded with enough ammo for a large contingent of marines, his companion responded by pointing out that he used a hell of a lot more than the average grunt, and that while their stores would hold out for at least some time, they should probably start looking for something else to use. While the Chief said that he could simply use his brute strength and perhaps his combat knife when he was going up against lesser enemies, Cortana seemed to disagree.

"Chief, we both know now what this world has to offer now-stuff that would put anything from Earth to shame. If you can't use guns, how exactly do you plan on taking out something like a tauren? Those things weigh nearly as much as you do. A knife and your fists probably aren't going to cut it."

"Alright. What do you have in mind?"

"Well, we _are _in a medieval world. The people here no doubt have a whole bunch of different kinds of melee weapons. Specifically, though, I was thinking about maybe a gigantic sword or battleaxe- you know, something with a little oomph behind it."

Although he didn't like the idea, something heavy-duty would indeed be his preference. There was one small thing he wanted of his new weaponry, however.

"Two."

"What?" Cortana asked, tilting her head.

"One sword would be a waste for the guy who can bench press a truck." Cortana laughed.

"Alright, I guess you have a point. Twogigantic swords, then. As for obtaining them... well, I know you probably won't like it, Chief, but we're going to have to make contact with the races of this world at some point. Except for, you know, the ones that are three stories tall and have wings. And if we're going to go somewhere like a major city-or even a place like that 'Valiance Keep'- there's no harm in, you know, buying what we need."

Thinking that shopping for weaponry would be the only kind of shopping that he might enjoy, the Chief nodded.

"The only problem would be getting the money. My hope is that this Alexastrasza might give us a little something in that vein for helping her. If she doesn't, then I guess we could always go find some evil bastards to liberate of their cash. And possibly their lives."

Nodding again, the Chief decided that UNSC equipment would have to be his primary armament until bought some new weapons. With this in mind, he took a few more two-round tubes for his rocket launcher and grabbed an M6G Magnum. It was smaller than a rifle, sure, but that was somewhat counteracted by the fact that he had M225-SAP-HE ammunition. There weren't many things that could take an armor-piercing, exploding .50 caliber round. If they could, they generally couldn't take the seven more in the magazine.

Content with his selection, the Chief exited the armory.

"Well, big man, first day on the job. The new one, anyway. You ready to leave?"

The Chief simply marched off towards the hangar, confident that his first mission would be, if nothing else, _interesting. _

**OoOoOoOoO**

**So I brought back Hayard. I don't know why I like hunters so damn much; especially ones with guns. And yes, I do plan on having him and the Chief meet. Then again, I _planned_ to write chapter 8 in less than a year, and we know how THAT turned out.**

**Bye!**


End file.
